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West Coast Fisheries

Oceanographic and habitat conditions significantly affect, and can even govern, the productivity of Northwest salmonids and groundfish. This research program focuses on the effects of ocean variability, habitat and human activities (including, in the case of groundfish, fishing patterns and regulations) on distributions, health and marine survival of salmonids and groundfish. Fishers have known for generations that specific habitat features favor high abundances of unique marine resources and that fish stocks respond clearly and sometimes suddenly to shifts or fluctuations in climate or fishing patterns.

In the continuing effort to make our science available to other scientists, managers, and interested parties, researchers from the West Coast Fisheries group maintain a blog, “Newportal: A gateway to oceanographic information from the Newport Line and beyond.” The Newportal Blog highlights recent news, field observations, collaborative efforts, and the latest scientific observations about our changing ocean in the northern California Current. The blog displays current and past oceanographic data—temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and fluorescence-- collected off Newport, Oregon about every two weeks throughout the year since 1996. We invite you to follow the blog so you can learn how the ocean conditions change over time and how this relates to fisheries.

Thus, it is critical that fishery scientists and oceanographers determine which physical and biological processes influence fish distributions, growth and survival, so that when the ocean enters a different climate state, or fishing practices change, or natural watershed conditions are restored, scientists are able to state to what degree any factor is responsible for shifts in growth and survival or possibly why certain species and stocks are most affected. Projects in the research program are funded by NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Bonneville Power Administration, and NSF.

Research in marine ecosystems and habitat includes the study of marine lipids. Lipids are important biochemical components of marine food webs and can elucidate predator-prey relationships, improve food sources for aquaculture, and facilitate an understanding of larger scale oceanographic processes. These combined approaches further our understanding of how climate change and oceanographic processes at lower trophic levels may affect food quality and condition of commercially important fish and invertebrates.

Summer Activities

June 20, 2015: Our researchers just left for sea to conduct oceanographic surveys in order to answer questions on the ecological effects of the Columbia Plume on our fisheries.

For those of you new to the survey, the plan is to conduct physical and biological sampling at 6-8 stations on each of 8 transects, that are spread out from the northern tip of WA to central OR. If you are inspired enough to locate the transect that are mentioned, they are so named relative to geographical features on the coast line. The survey is scheduled as below:

June 20: Father and Son June 21: La Push June 22: Queets River June 23: Grays Harbor June 24: Willapa Bay June 25: Columbia River June 26: Cape Meares June 27: Newport June 28: port in Astoria